1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an interactive computerized system and process which can be used by lay people for accurate measurement of the intake of foods, nutrients and other food components in the diet.
2. Description of the Art
The substantial impact of daily dietary patterns on the health of Americans is now a well-recognized fact throughout our nation. In recent years, scientific investigations have produced abundant information on the ways dietary eating habits can affect health. As summarized in The Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health (United States Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C. 1988), ". . . what we eat may affect our risk for several of the leading causes of death for Americans, notably, coronary heart disease, stroke, atherosclerosis, diabetes, and some types of cancer." Since 1936, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been responsible for conducting periodic surveys of food consumption. Currently, the agency's Nationwide Food Consumption Survey includes information on individual dietary intake, which serves as a basis for determining the magnitude of inadequate or imbalanced nutrition in the general population. Unfortunately, most methods used for dietary assessment are not scientifically based.
Numerous methods exist for measuring dietary intakes of individuals and of groups of individuals. Some are relatively simple, rough estimates, while others are more quantitative measures of food eaten. In most cases precise weighing methods demand close supervision of participants involved in the diet study or the actual weighing is done by dietitians or trained dietary assistants. Because of the labor and time costs associated with the more accurate data collection techniques, few studies and surveys employing dietary assessment have obtained accurate, quantitative data. In addition, the length of time spent on data processing of manually collected information is a concern for many researchers. Such processing work includes: coding of food records, verification of the coded work, manual computer entry of the coded information, and verification of the accuracy of the entered data. This data processing time has been responsible for substantially delaying the reporting of up-to-date food intake information. As a result, decisions on national health policy related to food and nutrition, national dietary recommendations, and national food programs (such as, the School Lunch and Food Stamp programs) have been hindered due to a lack of accurate and current dietary intake information.
Microcomputer nutrient calculation software programs, such as "Nutritionist III" (N-Squared Computing, Salem, Ore.) and "The Food Processor" (ESHA Research, Salem, Ore.), have been used by professionals in the field of nutrition and dietetics for calculating nutrient intake. Although there is computerization of the labor involved in some aspects of the food record coding, processing, and nutrient conversion, such software programs have not computerized the human effort involved in obtaining food intake weights. These nutrient calculation programs primarily have been designed to analyze recipes, meals, and diets using estimated food intake weights. The estimated food intake weights are usually derived from recalled amounts based on human memory or written estimates of foods eaten. Thus, the limitations of such software are in `how` the food intake information was gathered and in the `magnitude` of manual labor involved in the collection and entry of the intake data.
For the lay person who is interested in food and nutrition, commercial dietetic computer scales are available. Such units like the "Sentron Health Scale", "Sunbeam NutriScale II" and the "Polder Dietetic Computer Scale" are sold on the open market in the U.S. as tools for weight-loss or dietetic control regimes. Limitations of these domestic kitchen nutrient computing scales include: they are designed for single user application in monitoring specific nutrient intake, they are unable to intelligently interface with the user or other electronic equipment and instead rely on the user to remember all food weighing steps and procedures, they are limited to a pre-determined list of foods with a limited number of accompanying nutrients, their memory capacities are small and do not allow for retention of data over long periods, they are unable to quantitate mixed leftovers, spills, or foods consumed away from home, and because they are designed to provide a quick nutrient report of the foods to be eaten, the output contains limited nutrient information. They are simply data containing calculators designed to compute limited nutrients for a limited number of foods.
On a slightly more advanced end, the Food Recording Electric Device, denoted as FRED, (L. Stockley et al., Human Nutrition: Applied Nutrition 40A: 13-18, 1986) uses computer technology for collecting dietary information in the home. FRED consists of a pair of electronic scales interfaced to a microprocessor control unit with an RS-232 communications port. The surface of the control unit consists of an upper bank of six sequence control keys (e.g. `start`, `waste`, `no waste`, `mixed waste`, and `done`) and four colored sequence lights, and a lower bank of 55 "food group" record keys, all of which are color coded. The sequence lights act as prompts indicating the color of the key which is next in the sequence.
The major disadvantage of FRED as a computerized food weight method is that it does not have an intelligent man-machine interface. The software and hardware limitations of FRED prohibit FRED from providing the user with prompts and directives for food intake weighing and recording and prohibit the user from providing alpha-numeric response and descriptive information to FRED. Since FRED is non-interactive, it relies on the ability, the memory, and the intelligence of a human operator to understand the action messages embedded in the color sequence, to synchronize human action with light prompts which are in a color sequence, and to be capable of separating food names into "food group" categories in order to press the correct "food group" button during food identification operations. Because the user must control the actions of FRED rather than FRED controlling the actions of the user, data accuracy and reliability are questionable.
Other disadvantage of FRED include: each unit was designed for single user rather than multiple user applications; it does not provide for flexibility in the eating habits of users in that only one food weighing routine is available; it does not have a means to quantitate mixed leftovers, spills, or foods consumed away from home; it does not keep track of the containers used to weigh food thus increasing the likelihood of food weight errors; it does not have a means to detect errors made during the food weighing process; it is not capable of gathering from the user data other than food weights and "food group" identifications; food identifications are limited to the `food group` classifications provided by the researcher; only energy, protein, and fat intake can be calculated from the FRED food groups; the food identification limitations restrict usage of the data to nutrient intake estimation of populations, i.e. nutrient intake of an individual is not accurate; and the capability to calculate nutrient consumption information is not resident on FRED. There were plans to expand FRED's "food group" system to 104 "food groups" and to cover carbohydrate, sugars, starch, and dietary fiber in the nutrient analysis, however, to the best of our knowledge no new literature has been published nor have upgraded FRED models been announced.